Hosea 9:4

9:1-6 Israel gave rewards to their idols, in the offerings presented to them. It is common for those who are stubborn in religion, to be prodigal upon their lusts. Those are reckoned as idolaters, who love a reward in the corn-floor better than a reward in the favour of God and in eternal life. They are full of the joy of harvest, and have no disposition to mourn for sin. When we make the world, and the things of it, our idol and our portion, it is just with God to show us our folly, and correct us. None may expect to dwell in the Lord's land, who will not be subject to the Lord's laws, or be influenced by his love. When we enjoy the means of grace, we ought to consider what we shall do, if they should be taken from us. While the pleasures of communion with God are out of the reach of change, the pleasant places purchased with silver, or in which men deposit silver, are liable to be laid in ruins. No famine is so dreadful as that of the soul.

(4) Offer — i.e., pour out as a libation. A better rendering is to be obtained by abandoning the Hebrew accentuation: And their sacrifices will not be pleasing to Him; it shall be to them as bread of sorrow — i.e., funeral food, which defiles for seven days those who partake of it. Another reference to the Mosaic legislation ( Deuteronomy 26:14 )— Yea, their bread is for their appetite ( i.e., only for bodily sustenance ) , it cometh not to Jehovah’s house as a sacred offering. [12] These verses show that Hosea did not consider the worship of the Northern Kingdom as in itself illegal. [12] Kuenen (Hibbert Lecture, p. 312) proposes an alteration in the text, whereby the parallelism becomes more harmonious and the construction simpler. He then renders, “They shall pour no libation of wine to Jehovah, and shall not lay out their sacrifices before Him: as food eaten in mourning is their food.” This agrees better with Hosea 3:4.

They shall not offer {d} wine offerings to the LORD, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted: for their bread {e} for their soul shall not come into the house of the LORD. (d) All their doings both with regard to administration and religion, will be rejected as polluted things. (e) The meat offering which they offered for themselves.

4. offer wine offerings—literally, "pour as a libation (Ex 30:9; Le 23:13). neither shall they be pleasing unto him—as being offered on a profane soil. sacrifices … as the bread of mourners—which was unclean (De 26:14; Jer 16:7; Eze 24:17). their bread for their soul—their offering for the expiation of their soul [Calvin], (Le 17:11). Rather, "their bread for their sustenance ('soul' being often used for the animal life, Ge 14:21, Margin) shall not come into the Lord's house"; it shall only subserve their own uses, not My worship.

Hosea 9:4 . They shall not offer wine-offerings to the Lord — They have omitted to make wine-offerings to the Lord when they had it in their power, and when it was their duty to do it; and in the time of their captivity they will be willing to do it, but shall not have it in their power. Wine- offerings were appointed to be offered with the morning and evening sacrifice; the sacrifice representing Christ, and pardon by him, and the wine-offering the Spirit of grace. The daily repetition of the sacrifice continued their pardon and peace. All this, it is here threatened, should be withheld from these captives. Neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be, &c. — The words in this sentence are somewhat transposed in our translation. They stand otherwise in most other versions, namely, Neither shall their sacrifices be pleasing unto him, but as the bread of mourners among them — That is, their sacrifices shall be no more pleasing to God than if they were the bread of mourners, or that which is prepared for those who are mourning for the dead, of which no part was ever offered, or so much as brought into the temple. Mourners for the dead were, during their time of mourning, unqualified to attend upon God’s service; and any thing they had eaten of was accounted unfit to be offered to God: see note on Deuteronomy 26:14 . All that eat thereof — Namely, of the sacrifices here spoken of; shall be polluted — Rendered impure.

They, captived for their idolatry and other sins, shall not offer wine-offerings: these were by the law appointed to be offered with the morning and evening sacrifice; the sacrifice representing Christ, and pardon by him, the wine-offering represented the Spirit of grace. The sacrifice repeated daily continued their peace and pardon; the Spirit of grace supported, guided, comforted, and refreshed; all which shall be withheld from these captives, the law of God forbidding on one account, the law of their conquerors forbidding on another account. Neither shall they be pleasing unto him; or if any should venture to do it, and think thereby to appease God’s anger, they shall miss their aim, it will not please God. Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; their eucharistical sacrifices, in which they were used to feast with joy, shall be to them as the bread of mourners, as if they had buried a father or mother, and to comfort or support their saddened spirits did force themselves to some larger allowance and choicer meats; so great should be their grief in midst of their joys. Or else thus, their sacrifices should as much pollute them and displease God as if one mourning for the dead, and forbidden to sacrifice in tears and mourning, should yet venture to do it, and, against the law, sacrifice to his God when polluted by the dead, Numbers 19:11-14 Deu 26:14 .

All that eat thereof shall be polluted; so far shall these men’s sacrifices be from expiating and purifying, that they should increase their guilt and danger, and incur the penalty threatened against the polluted, Numbers 19:13 . For; or, surely; the particle is not here causal, but assertive, as in many other places it is. Their bread for their soul; their mincha or bread, which they always offered and were bound to offer with their sacrifices. Or else the first-fruits of their corn, which were to be brought to the Lord, and which being rightly offered did sanctify and insure the rest to them, with a blessing. This should not be done, they should be at that distance from the temple, and under the confinement of captives, so that they should not be able to do it if they were willing. Shall not come; be brought in to the priest in the temple, Deu 26:2,3 , &c.

4 . They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord ] Libations of wine were accompaniments of the burnt-offerings and the peace-offerings, and so are naturally mentioned in connexion with the ‘sacrifices.’ It is implied that wine in general would become ‘unclean’, if a certain measure of it were not devoted to this sacred and sanctifying purpose. The clause is therefore equivalent to this—‘The wine that they drink shall not be pleasing to the Lord’; comp. the following words. neither shall they be pleasing (lit. sweet) unto him ] Strangely enough, the accentuation of the text separates between the verb and its subject; the Sept., Targ., and Peshito preserve the obviously right view of the construction, neither shall their sacrifices be pleasing unto him . The peculiar accentuation was possibly caused by a wish to preclude a misinterpretation of Hosea’s language, viz. that the Israelites would go on sacrificing to Jehovah even when in captivity. But the truth is that the Hebrew zébakh (like ἱερεῖον , see Mahaffy’s Old Greek Life , p. 32) has a twofold meaning: 1, a sacrifice, and 2, a feast of animal food. Fleshmeat was not the habitual food of the Israelites, any more than it is of the Arabs at the present day; to partake of it was a special divinely given privilege (comp. Genesis 9:3 ), and those who from time to time availed themselves of this privilege had to make an acknowledgment of it by presenting, at the very least, the blood before Jehovah (comp. 1 Samuel 14:32-35 )

. The Book of Leviticus ( Leviticus 17:3-4 ) prescribes that the blood of all slain beasts should be offered to Jehovah at the door of the tabernacle, and though a milder rule is given in Deuteronomy ( Deuteronomy 12:15-16 ), yet, from what we know of the religious habits of the people, we may safely assume that not only did they worship Jehovah at the ‘high places’, but they also in one way or another presented any animal food of which they partook at the local shrines, as well as at the central sanctuary. Hence we may very probably lay down that in old Hebrew as in old Greek life the conceptions of sacrifice (and presenting the blood was a minor kind of sacrificial act) and of feasting upon animal food were inseparable; indeed, we find in the semi-secular Book of Proverbs two synonymous proverbs, in one of which a feast is described as ‘a stalled ox’, and in the other as ‘sacrifices’ (comp. Proverbs 15:17 ; Proverbs 17:1 ). Consequently, we might, in the clause before us, with equal justice render ‘neither shall their sacrifices’, and ‘neither shall their feasts (i.e. meat-meals) be pleasing unto him.’ It must be admitted, however, that the sense is improved if, with Kuenen, we alter a Beth into a Caph , and render, neither shall they lay out their sacrifices before him (upon the altar); comp. Hosea 3:4 . Such a mistake in the reading of the text would escape notice the more easily, because the phrase produced by it is so idiomatic (comp. Jeremiah 6:20 b ).